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by unspeakable3



Series: welcome to the most noble and ancient house of black [44]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Black Family-centric (Harry Potter), Dark Mark (Harry Potter), Death Eaters, Ficlet, Ficlet Collection, First War with Voldemort, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), POV Regulus Black, Regulus Black Feels, Regulus Black-centric, The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, Wordcount: 100-1.000, Wordcount: 100-500
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 21:22:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20378311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unspeakable3/pseuds/unspeakable3
Summary: (CW: self-harm)The Mark had been a deep angry red, the colour of iron-rich blood.





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For four long days his forearm had burned almost unbearably hot. The Mark had been a deep angry red, the colour of iron-rich blood, its lines shifting and reforming whenever he looked at it.

It had settled now. But he didn’t want it.

It was _wrong_. It wasn’t a Mark of brotherhood, as Lucius had said. It didn’t show loyalty or alliance or dedication or _any _of it. It was a brand. A stain. And he wanted it gone.

He tried a disillusionment charm but all that did was make his skin glimmer and then the Mark had faded back into view. He could almost see the snake, curling out of the skull (_honestly_, you’d think the Dark Lord could be a little less blatant with his iconography), laughing at him.

He even tried — feeling like a total prat as he did it and blushing furiously — applying a pot of his mother’s makeup but that did an even worse job than the disillusionment charm. He might have guessed since it had never seemed to make his mother look anything more than half-human at the best of times.

With every spell he tried Regulus felt more and more desperate for the damned thing to be gone. He had never wanted it, not really. He thought it was what his parents wanted, thought it would make them happy again, but now he realised that they might not have _ever_ been happy. Not in his lifetime, anyway.

Now, Regulus stood in front of the bathroom mirror. Tears streamed down his face, and blood down his left forearm. He had cast _Scourgify _so many times that the now-faded lines of his Dark Mark had run red again, the lines merging into one terrible bloody stream. The spell wasn’t intended for use on human skin, he knew that, but he’d done it out of desperation and almost flayed his arm.

Perhaps flaying _would_ work, eventually. Or perhaps he would never be able to hide it.

He stood listening to the steady _drip drip drip _of his blood hitting the bathroom tiles and screamed in frustration. The mirror shattered from his outburst of accidental magic, sending shards of glass flying in all directions. Kreacher appeared instantly by his side.

“Master Regulus?” the house-elf asked tentatively.

“_GET OUT!_”

Kreacher’s bat-like ears flattened and he cowered in the corner but he didn’t leave. _Wouldn’t _leave his beloved Master.


End file.
